The investigation centres on the city of Bruges 'a modern town grown up around a small inner section of beautifully restored medieval buildings' (Kristin Thompson), explored on a map and in reality. Thompson's detailed analysis of this and other films by Dekeukeleire can be read here.

An opposition of ancient and modern (in counterpoint to that of natural and human power) is apparent when the epilogue shows a diagram and map of a dam in Luxembourg, the Barrage de la Süre - nature harnessed by industry: